KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR GROUP WORK
There are special areas of knowledge that enable group workers to more ably serve the group. Besides the knowledge of the history and mission of social work profession as it impacts, group work with poor people, minorities and other disenfranchised people, a worker should have a knowledge of individuals, small group process and what is expected (functions) from the about the group work.
Knowledge of Individuals
1) Knowledge about the nature of individual human growth and behaviour, that too from a biopsycho-social perspective (person-in-environment) that means viewing the member in the context of the group and the community.
2) Knowledge about the familial, social, political and cultural contexts that influence members‘ social identities, interactional styles, concerns, opportunities, and the attainment of their potentials.
3) Knowledge about the capacity of members to help one another and to change and contribute to social change in the community.
4) Knowledge about the protective and risk factors that affect individuals‘ needs for services and their ability to act.
5) Knowledge about how to appreciate & understand differences due to culture, ethnicity, gender, age, physical and mental abilities and sexual orientation among members that Knowledge of individuals may influence group life and group work practice.
Knowledge of Group and Small Group Behaviour
1. Knowledge about the group as an entity, its dynamics, culture and other social conditions.
2. Knowledge about the group‘s multiple helping relationships, and ―mutual aid.‖
3. Knowledge about the group process and structures that shape and influence the members individual as well as collective transaction and how the group develop goals that contribute individual member growth, group development and/or social change.
4. Knowledge about the phases of group development and how it influence change throughout the life of the group.
5. Knowledge about how groups are formed for different purposes and goals (e.g., education problem solving, task accomplishment, personal change, social action) and this influences what the worker does and how the group accomplishes its goals as well as the nature of the contract between the worker and members, among the members, and between the group and the sponsoring organization.
Knowledge of the function of the Group Worker
1. Knowledge about how to promote individual and group autonomy, how to promote group goals, how to remain flexible, sensitivite and creativite.
2. Knowledge about the worker‘s tasks and skills that are specific to each stage of group development and the related group character, members‘ behaviour and tasks.
3. Knowledge about the recent advancement and research related to group process and contemporary practice principles.
4. Knowledge about methods of monitoring and evaluating the group process, how to involve the members in evaluation process
5. Knowledge about appropriate recording of the group processes and how to disseminate knowledge about effective practices through professional meetings, education and scholarship.
6. Knowledge about professional, ethical, and legal requirements generally associated with social work practice as well as those specifically associated with social work with groups and how to assess their own practice and seek supervision and/or consultation in order to Knowledge of the function enhance their practice.
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
Freud is perhaps one of the earliest theorists to provide an explanation of human personality. Freud conceptualized that the human mind has two broad systems. One he described as conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious and the other as Id, Ego and super Ego. Freud suggested that mind was composed of thoughts (ideas), feelings, instincts, drives, conflicts and motives. Most of these elements were located in the unconscious or preconscious. There is a repressed area which serves as a barrier where a lot of disturbing material (thoughts and feelings), as unresolved conflicts, are placed through the process of defense mechanism. Defense mechanism or repression is a process in which unacceptable desires, memories and thoughts are excluded from consciousness by sending the material into the unconscious under the repressed barrier. Freud suggests that this results in producing irritants such as unwanted emotions and behaivour such as anger, hallucinations, etc.
Describing the second system Freud explains that Id is the primitive psychic force hidden in the unconscious. It represents the basic needs and drives such as hunger, thirst, sex and self preservation, which support other personality factors. Id governed by the pleasure principle primarily seeks to express itself irrespective of the consequences, while Ego acts as the rational component of the mind which controls the thinking of the mind. Super ego serves as the conscience by indicating what is right and wrong socially and morally. Freud conceptualized that people pass through six psychosocial development stages. During any one of the stages conflicts may arise and if it remains unresolved the person‟s personality development will be affected. He thought that disturbances can arise from several sources. Traumatic experiences which a person‟s ego is not able to cope with directly are repressed. Similarly internal unconscious processes could also cause disturbances. Freud, in elaborating the group‟s influence on human behaviour, specifically mentions about the importance of group leader, and the early life experiences of the members. The members use transference in their interactions that occur within the group and try to recreate their conflicts and defense mechanisms.
More recent psychoanalytic group treatment have adapted and modified classical psychoanalytic theory to emphasize the current experiences of group interaction. Through direct, mutual interpersonal communications members build interpersonal skills, adaptive capacities and ego strength, and develop self awareness of their behaviour and its implications in a group situation. The cohesiveness of the group helps members to feel secure and able to share the intimate personal details of their life and to act out their conflicts in the safe and supportive environment of the group. For details see the text on psychoanalytic theory.
LEARNING THEORY
Learning Theory has created a lot of controversy in group work as it focuses more on individual than on group dynamics with reference to influencing individual behaviour. Learning theory also provides a frame work for understanding human behaviour. It provides an understanding of the social functioning of persons within their environments. The person in dynamic interaction with all aspects of the environment is the focus of attention. Further, it emphasizes the importance of assessment of observable behaviour, and advocates the use of specific terms in defining behaviour. And finally it takes a positive approach that if behaviour is learned then it can also be unlearned.
Respondent conditioning refers to the emission of behaviour in response to a specific stimulus. The stimulus could be a word, sight or a sound. The second type of learning is called modeling, which simply refers to learning by observation. The children of parents who smoke are likely to be smokers. Children of parents with ability to control their feelings under stress are likely to learn self-control. However, a number of factors or conditions can affect the effectiveness of modelling. Some of them are similarity of the model to the observer, the prestige, status and expertise of the model, and the diversity of models around the observer. Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which behaviours are altered primarily by regulating the subsequences which follow them. New behaviours could be learned and undesirable behaviours could be weakened and eliminated by regulating the consequences.
By using the learning theory framework, the group can provide reinforcements to strengthen behaviour. There are both positive and negative reinforcements. A good example of negative reinforcement in a group situation is to discourage behaviour by booing, if the proper dress code or language or behaviour code is violated. The person will then behave in a particular manner to avoid the booing. However, a more server response like terminating the membership to weaken a behaivour is called punishment. Similarly extinction or withdrawal of reinforcements results in weakening of particular behaviour. The learning theory thus provides a framework for group workers to modify behaviour. The context could be achievement of group tasks and development, or helping the members to unlearn behaviors that create problems in their social functioning. Sociologists have also studied groups and their functioning. They have come up with a number of interesting findings that are helpful in highlighting the functioning of groups.
FIELD THEORY
Kurt Lewin was one of the pioneers to scientifically study group functioning. He focused on the forces that influenced the working of groups. He and his colleagues tried to study leadership styles by creating groups with different styles of leaderships in order to see their impact on the functioning of the group. It is commonly observed that a leader becomes authoritarian when the members are seeking favours, rather than questioning the decisions or even discussing the issues objectively. Lewin argued that the leadership style is a product of leader and member interaction rather than a personality trait of the leader. Further, Lewin, while developing his Field Theory, argued that a group has a life space and it has movement. It tries to accomplish goals or group tasks and faces hurdles in its movement (locomotion). Lewin believed that group was an entity of opposing forces which keep the group members in the group and move them along in achieving group goals. However, the behaviour of individual members and the group itself should be seen as a product of the totality of the group situation (Lewin, 1964)
Lewin introduced several concepts to help in the understanding of forces at work in the group. Some of them are
Roles- status rights and duties of group members;
Norms – Rules governing the behaviour of group members;
Power – the ability of members to influence on another
Cohesion-The attraction the group members feel towards one another and towards the group
Consensus- the degree of agreement regarding goals and other group phenomena, and
Valence – the potency of goals and objects in the life space of the group.
Other field theorists have continued to work on the characteristics of group that influence the individual behaivour. Cohesion has been identified as an important factor, defined as, “the totality of forces acting on individual members to keep them in the group.
Cohesion reflects the agreement on goals and norms, shared understanding and a greater homogeneity in demographic background, as also the productivity, satisfaction and cooperative interaction patterns. Lewin developed t-group as a means to observe the effects of group process on group members and as a means to induce changes in behaviour.
Lewin thus helped in developing a theory that people change when they see their behaviour as others see it, thus leading to development of the feedback method whereby the group members and the group leader provide feedback to the individual as to how his/her behaviour was affecting them. Role plays and simulations are also used to highlight the group process. The group workers using the field theory framework can design their own interventions in working with the group for achieving the group goals along with individual development
SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY
The central concern of the exchange theory is to find an explanation for the human transactions of giving and receiving. James Frazer suggests that men enter in to institutionalized patterns of exchange to satisfy their economic needs. But there is a difference between economic exchange and social exchange. Social exchange process yield for the larger society a moral code of behaivour, which acquires an independent existence outside the social exchange situation and which informs all social, economic, and political interpersonal relationships in society. The triple obligations of social exchange- to give, to receive and to repay – are to be understood not as self- interest but in terms of interpersonal, hence inter-group, relations. Social exchange transaction creates social bonds creating ties between individuals and the collectivity. Levr-Stratuss argued that it is the exchange which is important not the things which are exchanged and the primary function of the exchange is structural integration of the collectivity.
Homans and Blau among others have developed the exchange theory to explain members‟ behaviour within a group. They argued that all members in a group will try to maximize individual rewards and minimize punishments. All human interaction according to them is seeking something in return from the other. The behaviour is conditioned to maximize rewards and minimize punishment in all interactions. However, the process requires taking decisions and carrying out tasks assigned. Deviations occur as members to not attempt to maximize rewards, which create difficulties in accepting the exchange theory. The cognitive process and the members capacities are not full explained by the exchange theory can be summarized as follows: social behaviour is an exchange of goods, material and non-material, such as approval or prestige. Persons that give to others try to get something in return, and persons who receive from others are under pressure to give in return. This process of exchange tends to create equilibrium to balance the exchanges.
Power Dependence Relations
Emerson sought to advance exchange theory by developing a theory of power dependence, Emerson attempts to provide a link among the concepts of „Power‟, „Authority‟, Legitimacy‟ and „Structure‟ by giving a definition of power that emphasizes its relational character. He sees power as bound with ties of mutual dependence. This means that „B‟s power is proportionally related to „A‟ dependence on „B‟ for particular rewards or resources. Power is a phenomenon that is realized through social exchange. The explanation can help the group workers to understand the relationship among members in a group. It can also explain the emergence of leadership in a group and the processes of dominance and obedience. One of the ways of coupling with the power of a person is the emotional withdrawal by the other. The other strategy is to extend your networking, by enlisting the support of other persons having a dependence on the same persons. For example if „A‟ is the dominating person in the group who makes demands on others „B‟ and „C‟ join together to balance the power dependence relations. Such networking or coalition formation goes on changing as the power dependence relation between members continues to change. The stabilization of this can result in development of group norms and role prescriptions. Both are collective efforts at giving some kind of legitimacy to power dependence relations as also balancing them for the survival of the collective goals. Status ordering also is a balancing act of power dependence relations within group. Some of the salient features of the theory are:
1. Conformity varies directly with motivational investment in the group.
2. Conformity varies inversely with acceptance in alternative groups
3. Conformity is high at both ends, i.e. the highly valued and the lowly valued members
4. Coalition of week members is inevitably formed to control the strong within a coalition
5. Greatest rewards within a coalition are given to the least dependent member of the coalition.
Human Capital and Social Capital
James Coleman is one of the advocates of rational choice theory. Coleman believes in a concept known a „Methodological individualism‟. The two concepts in Coleman‟s theory are actors and resources and the two key resource are: human capital and social capital. Similar to the creation of physical capital by shaping the material into tools and machines to facilitate production, human capital is created by shaping the individuals by giving them skills and capabilities that gives them power to act in innovative ways to produce. Social capital is created by shaping relations between individuals to facilitate action. For example, a group where members trust each other will act better than the one where there is no trust. The importance of social capital has been exhibited by the acceptance of team development efforts by the corporations.
Human capital and social capital can complement each other or they can destroy each other. Social capital as a concept can help the actors to realize the importance and usefulness of those aspects of social to realize the importance and usefulness of those aspects of social structure which will help them to achieve their interests. In a cohesive group where members are willing to help each other and abide by the group norms, the level of trust worthiness of the group environment is a crucial factor in the success of the group. It means that the obligations will be repaid. A simple example is the rotating credit groups. In such groups, each member contributes and amount to a central fund, which is given to a member. Each member gets his/her amount back and in addition gets a loan without interest. However, if obligations and expectations are not balanced the social capital gets diluted. Norms and effective sanction can help in balancing obligations and expectations. The stability of marriage and family in India is an example of effective sanctions, as deviations bring about spontaneous and complete rejection from the entire group, forcing compliance from members.
Social group work practice based on the above findings relating to small groups has developed the following assumptions:
ü Group is a powerful source for influencing the behaviour of its members.
ü The nature of influence depends on a number of factors such as the size of the group,
bond among members, and the capacity of the group to reward members
ü Members carry their social status in the group
ü The internal and external environment of the group is dynamic in nature.
ü There are groups within a group
ü Generally members are under pressure to conform to group norms
ü Smaller the group the greater is the intensity of bond between members.
ü Group influence on members can be both positive and negative.
ü Group is a potential source for meeting individual needs
SYSTEM THEORY
Systems Theory Systems theory is also helpful to explain the functioning of a group. Talcott Persons defined social system as a set of interdependent elements trying to function as a unified whole to maintain order and a stable equilibrium. The social systems are constantly facing new challenges as the environment around them and within, is constantly changing. Therefore, they must act to maintain the equilibrium if they have to survive. This act of survival depends upon four basic functions:
(a) Integration
(b) adaptation;
(c) pattern maintenance;
(d) goal attainment.
The group viewed as a system would therefore be able to achieve its objectives if it is able to carry out these four functions effectively. It is able to integrate members by achieving individual and group goal matching. It also has the capacity to make changes to adapt itself to outside demands like that of the community and the sponsoring organization and with the internal dynamics as it changes with time. The pattern maintenance would require development of norms and guidelines to regulate its activities and develop well defined objectives, identify and procedures that are able to sustain these over time. The functioning of a system depends to a great extent on the carrying out the role assigned to them. The goal attainment is the final task to ensure the smooth functioning of the system. The members will lose interest and the functioning of the group will be affected if the goals are attainable is an important attribute of group stability and functioning. Parsons pointed out that problems will arise during the functioning of the group; the group, including its leadership must make use of its resources effectively to tackle the problems to maintain the equilibrium of the group. Robert Bales, however, believed that the survival of the group depends on two central tasks. The first he termed the instrumental problems related to tasks or goal related functions and the second, socio-emotional tasks related to the interpersonal relationships between members, and between members and leader, for coordinating and maintaining the emotional unity and morale of the group. While the instrumental problems generally arise on account of the external pressures, the socio emotional problems are rooted in the internal dynamics of the group. The insights are helpful for workers to deal with both kinds of challenges in their working with groups. It is often seen that exclusive focus on one results in ignoring the other, making the group dysfunctional in the process. However, Bales sees this as natural, as the group struggles to maintain a dynamic equilibrium between the two sets of functions. Bales prefers a certain amount of tension and antagonism to Parsons; emphasis on harmony. The worker can keep in mind that the emphasis on tasks will vary in different groups, depending upon the central purpose of the group. It will be different in a self-help group formed to achieve a specific task, than in a group of children. it is also possible to analyze the interaction between members in a group by using a tool developed by Bales called interaction Process Analysis.